Rock you like a hurricane

We’ve survived the storm, in case anyone was concerned.

Other than dying of boredom, Tropical Storm Ernesto was of little threat to us. It was a real dud. I’ve created greater wind velocity passing gas. While we did have several strong false labor pains last night, D’Brick remains comfortably inside the womb with 26 days to go.

Hurricane Baby

In lieu of the approaching hurricane, if the atmospheric pressure drops significantly causing Tracy to go into labor, and we end up having a boy, it would be fitting that we name the child Ernesto Medwid.

As of the 5am advisory this morning, the National Hurricane Center says “These conditions would favor the possibility of Ernesto becoming a category 2 or even a category 3 hurricane before making landfall along the Florida coast.”.

Keep your fingers crossed for us.

The Final Countdown!

We have only 33 days left until our due date. My medical training tells me that we aren’t going to make it that long. According to many unsolicited opinions, D’Brickashaw has dropped. She is carrying lower. We are experiencing Braxton-Hicks contractions. (Do I know my terminology, or what?!) It is time to secure a plan in case we start to dilate.

With just about a month to go, here is the scoop:

 I am drained. I feel like I just finished the Iditarod and I was one of the dogs pulling the sled. There is no time to rest right now. If you aren’t working or sleeping, it is a safe bet that you are doing something baby related. Only 18 more years of this to go.

 I started reading to the baby. Some pregnancy guides say it’s a good idea for me to talk to the child so he/she gets used to hearing my voice. Yes, that sounds a little strange but I figure it can’t hurt. The book I have chosen is Nick Hornby’s “A Long Way Down”. It is the story of 4 people who meet, by chance, on New Year’s Eve on the rooftop of a London building. Each has shown up there intent on committing suicide. Ok, so it’s not Dr. Seuss but at least I try and censer any F bombs while reading.

 Pampers or Huggies? I am still not sure.

 We almost have our hospital bags packed. First, we had to wash some of Brick’s new clothes. We had to use a detergent specifically designed for infants called Dreft. Or Drift. Or something like that. I don’t know what is so extraordinary about it but considering this special detergent and the bottle warmer and the diaper genie and the baby wipes warmer, I am wondering how our parents ever survived without all this stuff.

 This may be the final picture posted of Tracy with a belly.

A letter to Graco

Dear Mr. Graco:

I am trying to install your infant car seat. 15 minutes into this ordeal and I am already annoyed. For someone who rarely travels with infants, I would think one of the most obvious questions is - where do I install this thing? Forty-three pages later through your an instruction manual, and I am still unsure. I thought it would be on page one. I was wrong.

On page 17, you made sure to tell me “Never Leave Your Child Unattended”.
Well, duh! Thanks a lot, you child caring whiz. I guess the manual should also include such parenting gems like “Remember to periodically feed your child” and “After a bath, do not use oven to dry child”.

There is only one paragraph that mentions infant seat positioning. It reads as follows; “Whenever possible, secure the infant restraint in the center position of the seat directly behind the front seats. An adult should ride in the rear seat to watch the child. If the driver is the only other adult in the car, a child may need to ride in the front seat but only if there is no air-bag”.

What the hell does whenever possible mean? How do I know if it is possible? And if it is not, are you telling me the only other place to put the child is in the front seat? But I have an airbag there. So now what? I guess the next line of that paragraph should read;
If it is not possible to secure the child in the center and you do have passenger side airbags, then you should not have had a child.

Forget this unnecessary car seat contraption, I am just going to hold my kid on my lap. Brittany Spears does it and she has to be a good parent because she is famous, right?

Frustratingly yours,

Derek

Credit where credit is due

“She's short and skinny, but she's strong. Her first baby...come out sideways. She didn't scream or nothing.”
- Owen from Planes Trains and Automobiles

I have heard some horror stories about how my wife is going to behave in the final trimester. It has best been described as a lose-lose situation. I’ll get yelled at for being home, cursed at for not being home and pretty much anything I say will be wrong and irritating.

I may be jinxing myself but so far I have yet to see that side show its ugly face. She has been terrific. The worst incident I can recall happened a couple of weeks ago. I received a phone call from Tracy at work.

She asked, “Where did we go after the hospital on Saturday morning?”

“We drove down Glades Road to..”

“No. That’s not what I mean. I am missing my folder. Where did we go after the hospital?”

“Well, we drove past the Pediatrician’s office and then by Rag Shops..”

“NO! (louder, this time) That’s not what I am asking!”

“Um, honey. I have no idea how to answer your question.”

“Fine. Forget it.” (click)

All things considered, I think I am getting off extremely easy in the raging hormones category.

It's a Deluge!

Well, they are finally over. We had more showers than New Orleans during Katrina. So many gifts from so many generous people. I am so appreciative of all the support from family, friends and co-workers. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Which says a lot, coming from a guy who used to own a T-shirt with the words "I Hate People" printed on the front and "I Hate You" on the back.

We may have to put our house up for sale and find something bigger. You'd never know this was all for one child. You would think Tracy was giving birth to the Partridge Family. Here is what my living room now looks like:



And of course, my favorite gift. I sampled it this morning and it seems to work well.

Deliverance

“Is it possible to just request a C-Section?”

It was about halfway into our 3rd parenting class when I asked the teacher this question. She looked at me peculiarly as if to say, why would anyone want to do that? Suzanne, the teacher, then told me she has seen it done, although it is fairly rare.

At this point in class, she started discussing a vaginal birth and all of its gruesome details. The intense pain. The poking and prodding. Sticking a needle into your spinal cord (but not too far, like you have ample room to maneuver in there) just to help ease the discomfort. Dilating to 10 centimeters! We saw what 10 centimeters looks like. It looks like no picnic.

And that is just the beginning. How about an episiotomy? It is better to be cut than to tear naturally. That is a sentence I should have never had to hear in my lifetime. During delivery, you’ll get medication for nausea but it may not suffice. You still might puke. Not to mention, I just read that it is not unlikely to have a bowel movement during the process. They never showed any of this when Elyse Keaton gave birth to Andrew on Family Ties!

I’ve heard enough. C-Section it is.

With thirty minutes to go in the class, Suzanne pops in the C-Section DVD. The video shows a woman who pushes for 3 hours before she is taken for a Cesarean. As they roll the woman to the operating room, I am compelled to ask;

“Are they going to show everything?”

“Yes. Of course.”

And like the proverbial train wreck, I couldn’t look away. It was like watching the Blair Witch Project. I was terrified but still peeking through my hands, which were shielding my eyes. The knife slices her open. Suddenly, there is a head. The doctors are holding the head while someone is using a blue, what looked to be a miniature turkey baster, around the infant’s neck.

“Good Lord! What are they doing to that child?!”, I couldn’t help shouting. I think someone answered me (it may even have been Tracy) but I do not recall what was said. The baby comes out and other stuff follows and if I never hear the word “discharge” again, it’ll be too soon. We were both woozy after this session.

Ok, so vaginal is out. C-section is out. I am praying there is an option #3 I haven’t read about yet.

A Beautiful Mind

A quote from page 447 of my Mayo Clinic pregnancy book reads, "Sometimes women become more forgetful or absent-minded during pregnancy. You may have trouble concentrating or feel like you are in a fog."

I am living proof that this ailment also impacts men. By the third trimester, your mind is so overloaded with baby stuff, you start to feel like Leonard in the movie Memento, where the only way you can remember something is to tattoo it on your body.

You wake up in the morning and, try as you might to focus on something else, your thoughts inevitably end up sounding like, "I really need to weed the baby walkway because baby people are coming to baby visit this weekend and if I baby don’t do it today baby baby baby baby…, what was I saying?"

And this ends up interfering with simple daily activities. Sure, it starts out insignificant. The other day I put ice in my glass, completely forgetting to add the water, and when I went to take a sip, the ice cube clanked off my tooth like a puck of the goal post. Ha-ha, dopey me.

Then it progresses to things like this.



This is actually what my fridge looked like after I unloaded the groceries. Can you guess which item doesn’t belong? No, we generally don’t keep an unopened box of Cheerios in the refrigerator.

A few days ago, this disease migrated to the next level. I pulled into my driveway, shut off the radio and gathered my belongings. Simultaneously, I started thinking about what day would be best to assemble our new crib. Well, a funny thing…I never put the car in park. It was still in drive and I was about 1.24 seconds from lifting my foot off the brake and introducing the front of my car to my garage door. Thankfully, I caught it just in time.

The most recent incident, and certainly the most troubling, occurred yesterday morning. When I finished showering, I began toweling off as usual. Starting with my hair, then my face and so on, saving for last, the areas of your body, how do I put this delicately, the areas that should be toweled off last. I live in south Florida where the current daily temperature is over 90 degrees and the humidity off the charts. Your eyelids sweat when you blink. So you have to make sure you completely dry those dark hidden places on your body.

As I vigorously worked to make sure these areas were dry, my mind began to wander. "What if we have a boy and I am asked to umpire one of his little league games. If my son is up at bat, and there is a close pitch, do I call it a ball and risk people thinking I am playing favorites or do I call it a strike and risk pissing off my kid…"

As soon as this obscure thought faded, I snap back to reality to the abhorrent realization that I am once again drying my face. And it occurs to me that this towel, which is now draped all over my head, just came from an area of considerably less visibility. Dammit! Back in the shower!

Crashing my car is one thing but this was too much. Hopefully this absent-mindedness will end once the baby arrives. I mean, once the kid is here, there is much less to worry about, right? RIGHT?!

A Word of Advice

When a women who is 33 weeks pregnant tells you to do something… you do it!! The proper response to the statement -

“Derek, don’t forget we have parenting class tonight.”

is not,

“Aw man, I hate that class. Can we skip it?”

You wouldn’t think a petite 100-pound woman could hurl a ceramic bowl with such velocity but I have the bruise to prove it!



For the remaining 51 days, my vocabulary is limited to two words – “Yes, Dear.”

Christmas in August

“Have a good shower. Use soap.” So said Tom Hanks in the comedy classic Bachelor Party. He was referring to a bridal shower but I am here to discuss a baby shower. My co-workers threw me a surprise baby shower with surprise being optimal word.

I walked into the conference room and the look on my face portrayed a combination of shock and uneasiness. Probably what Mel Gibson looked like right after he got pulled over. But unfortunately for me, I was not loaded.

The meeting request on my calendar said DM luncheon. I was told it stood for divisional managers or something along those lines, never connecting the dots that my initials are, obviously, DM. I even stumbled across my friend, who also happens to be the co-worker that planned this whole shindig, in the grocery store a couple of days before the shower. I noticed she had like 7 bottles of soda in her carriage but Sherlock Holmes here could only deduce, in a comment later made to Tracy, that “Terry sure drinks a lot of soda.”

Sure enough, there is a table positioned in the front of the room. Cameras are flashing like the paparazzi at a movie premiere. (It may have only been one camera but it felt like dozens.) The entire room gawks awkwardly at me like they are expecting me to say something clever. “Let’s eat!” is about all I am able to muster.

After a delicious lunch, it was time to focus on the mountainous stack of presents resting patiently to my left. One by one, I opened each gift and thanked the appropriate person. There were lots of great presents in the pile but not a single video game or power tool in the bunch. In fact, come to think of it, nearly every present I opened was for the baby. Still, it was quite a gesture from these people and I was very touched.

Now that his/her room is nearly ready and we have another whole room stacked with infant gifts, our house is starting to really look like we have a baby on the way. 54 more days! Enough said.